Meet Bobsia, a champion gamer with a very particular set of skills.

I'm a speedrunner and I complete games as fast as I can, but blindfolded.

His biggest achievement to date was a blindfolded speedrun of Super Mario 64, collecting 120 stars in one sitting, which took him a colossal 11 hours and 22 minutes. 120 star was something that was like completely thought of as impossible by like literally everybody, like including myself, people started like mocking me, yeah, but could you do it in one sitting?

Could you do it in one speedrun?

I'm stubborn, so of course I tried.

Now a world record holder, Bobsia is quitting his job and going full time.

For me at this moment, it goes just like any other career.

And for the aspiring speedrunners out there, he breaks down his technique, teaching us the steps to level up our playing.

There's no way I could've got that.

Speedrunning relies on muscle memory, the brain's ability to perform a task with minimal conscious effort after repeated practice.

When you play a game, your motor cortex sends signals to start a movement, and your cerebellum helps fine tune these movements for better coordination and accuracy.

With practice, your neural pathways become stronger, making your actions faster and more precise.

This process is called neuroplasticity.

So what happens when you remove a major sense like your sight?

One of the techniques that we use to actually navigate games blindfolded is something that I personally call beat counting.

So what we use is the background music of the game.

We literally listen to the song, count the rhythm of it, like one, two, three, four.

Based on these beats, we bind inputs to the beats.

So on beat number one, we hold up.

On beat number two, we jump.

On beat number three, we press beat.

And like this, you can make extremely precise and also consistent movement.

Jump.

Two, three, four.

Jump right.

Two, three, four.

Jump and dive.

Three, four.

And basically like this, I have mapped out the entire game.

One and two, three, four, five and six, seven, eight.

I usually practice and stream for like around three hours per day right now.

Within these three hours, I would say I'm not longer than like two hours blindfolded a day, which, I mean, it's already quite a bit, I guess.

After I'm tired from gaming, what I usually do to unwind is chill out with like my cat and my wife, go on a little walk.

It's very interesting how he is after gaming.

When it's a great run that went really well, you can see the excited energy on him.

Sometimes he's quite gloomy if things are not working out how he wishes it to go.

I'm just trying to navigate how the run was that day.

Gameplay might not always go to plan, but dedication is key.

I got into gaming all the way back in the days when I was a tiny kid.

We had a Nintendo 64 at home, so I grew up with lots of Nintendo titles, especially Mario and Zelda franchises.

I got into speedrunning by watching another blindfolded speedrunner actually called Runnerguy.

I saw Runnerguy doing a blindfolded Ocarina of Time speedrun, and it was so fascinating how he did crazy setups, like jumping twice to the right side, backflipping five times, changing the angle.

It was a game that I played so often, and this was a completely new approach of how to play it.

I decided to try it out myself with a game that I know, which was Super Mario 64.

In Super Mario 64, the main objective is to collect 120 stars.

Some need, like, puzzle solving, some need, like, movement.

My process in learning Super Mario 64 was taking each star and then trying it visually out until we reach the point that we can reliably get it blindfolded.

When I catched on that same day my first star, it was such a great feeling.

It was so much fun.

Here we go!

The excitement that I got on that day, I think that just went on forever and that just lasted.

I should be around the 5,000 hour mark with Super Mario 64 alone.

Training for his world record took one year and three months.

It was a whole challenge itself, preparing everything.

I had a famous rice bowl, which is always mentioned online.

It's always a bit of a meme online because I used to always, mid-run, quickly grab my rice bowl, eat a bit.

I was blindfolded, of course, so I had trouble, like, finding the spoon and all.

Trying to eat mid-run and then, like, gain quickly.

Oh my god!

First try, LLL100!

I did not take any bathroom breaks.

It's just part of the speedrun because you want to do it as a single session, especially in blindfolded, where there's so much doubt about my legitimacy.

Softwell, dude!

I did the run and, like, it was on YouTube and I just went on with life.

And a couple of months later, like, some random person in my chat was like, yo, look what I found.

They linked me to the Guinness World Record website and there was, like, an article about me with, like, my record.

Now I have my certificate here.

My biggest rival right now is kind of myself.

Yeah, I'm an adult.

Bobsia is one of a global community of speedrunning enthusiasts with millions of members sharing strategies online and competing against each other.

Yeah!

GG, Bobsia!

I was fortunate enough that I've been to many speedrun events in my life.

I've been now all over the world.

I've been twice to the USA.

I've been, like, three times to Sweden.

I've been to Japan.

It's very fascinating for me that, like, this little hobby of mine can bring me around the world.

His channel has built such a fan base that he's quitting his job as a software engineer to be a full-time gamer.

So, today will be my last work day in my company job, actually.

It was always like, yeah, one more week, one more month, one more day.

And, like, now it's here, so I'm extremely...

Yeah, like, it's a weird feeling.

Today is his first day going full-time.

The biggest reason why I now decided to quit my job and, like, pursue my speedrunning as, like, my full-time gig is mostly I have so many things I want to work on, so many videos that I want to produce about it to, like, spread the word about this hobby around the world.

So, yeah, why not just go for it, you know?

Bobsia is now taking on other games, including the very difficult Dark Souls.

When I met Bobsia, I had no clue of speedrunning, of really gaming whatsoever.

So it was a really eye-opening experience when he showed me one of his videos.

It's not such a shocking thing anymore that he's now doing full-time because I've seen it every day, how it's growing, how his community is growing.

He's putting so much effort in it.

It's not just tapering out of thin air.

It is persistent practice and work.

For me, at this moment, it feels just like any other career.

Of course it comes also with, like, factors of, like, yeah, financial stability.

Like, what if my, like, viewers drop or, like, my numbers drop, you know?

But I try to just not think too much about it for now because it's going stable, it's going well, and I'm just doing what I love to do, and I think that's the most important right now.

This Masterclass isn't for the faint-hearted.

We're going deep into Super Mario 64 for Bobzia's guide to catching a star blindfolded.

But first, his top tips.

Hello, sir.

Hello, hello.

Oh, God.

OK, see how we get on.

So we start out and just hold straight up.

All the way up.

Straight up, yeah.

When Mario hits the wall, you see here?

Oh, yeah.

It's when he follows the wall.

And when he reaches the corner, it's like a...

It's like a slide.

Yeah, it's a flat slide.

Then from here, you go to the upper left, and he will, like, run.

There's a footstep.

And then you need to jump once.

Jump twice.

The next goal is to go into the chimney there.

So we can just go down right.

And he should, like, latch on this.

So now you need to actually listen to the music.

So there's, like, a long note.

Ah, so you can't hear the long D.

Yeah, there's, like, this D.

And during that long D sound, you know, you go from down to up right.

Because that will cause Mario to go into the shortcuts here.

Ah.

Oh, my God.

I've forgotten it already, but OK.

Punch the wall.

So, yeah.

And then do a backflip, which is a crouch and one jump.

And he does, like, a backflip all the way down.

And then from here on, you can just hold up left.

And he will eventually, slowly, slowly get there.

And then there is the star.

Oh, the star's there!

You need to go to the star.

And what I recommend is using the pause button here.

Yep.

You can take your time to find the stick into the up left.

And then you press on start.

On start, and then jump, I think, after two or after three.

One, two.

Yeah, you just did not jump.

Oh, yes, jump!

Wow, I did that all blindfolded!

That's really hard.

That's going to be so difficult.

Time for the students to become the masters.

Oh, my God, already the difference is so overwhelming.

Use the headphones there.

Thank you.

I've got one already.

I can feel it.

Just keep holding.

Keep holding.

I can do it.

Sorry.

A bit too late.

Okay. We're cooking.

Let's keep going.

Keep going.

Okay.

One, two.

Extremely close.

Extremely close.

I'm so close.

Jump around before I get to it.

Do I go here?

Game over.

Game over. That'll do.

Oh, my God, that's so hard.

How long did that take, Matt?

About 6 minutes 40. 6 minutes 40?

You can do that.

Well, let's see how Matt does next then. I'm not really getting myself comfortable getting ready with my surroundings.

Okay, straight up.

I think that worked.

I'm here.

I'm here.

I'm here.

I'm here.

Is that right?

L, A.

I've hit the floor.

Door.

Door, door, door.

Yes.

Okay.

So, it's one, two beats.

One, two.

I went a bit too early.

So, I'm going to get left up.

Oh!

No way.

There's no way I just got that. 1 minute 39.

That's unbelievable.

Honestly, I did not think I was going to get that.

Oh, yes.

Sorry, I'm clammy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

So, you are today's winner of the blindfolded competition.

Well played.

Beauty before age.

No.

I do truly believe that anyone and everybody can blindfold video games.

It is not an unseen art or something.

It helps, of course, if you have a good rhythm, for example, or if you have a good memory, but it's not required by any means.

And Propsia believes it has a deeper benefit.

Since I started doing blindfolded speedrunning, I have improved in my learning, like how I obtain information and how I process them.

It's a great part of that, like, you can learn something so valuable for your real life from gaming.